Former director to co-manage domestic abuse agency

The acting administrator of Rainbow House Domestic Abuse Services has been named the agency’s executive director.

Courtney Olson — who held the top job more than a decade agao — will jointly manage Rainbow House with lead advocate Jessica Honish.

Olson manages the organization’s human resource, administrative, and grant-writing functions, as well as oversee its $300,000 annual budget. She will supervise 12 full-time, part-time and fill-in staff members.

Olson was asked to help at the shelter after the murder of interim director Patricia Waschbisch. She volunteered her time for few months, then was offered the acting administrator by the board of directors in July.

With background in human resource management as well as extensive experience in grant writing, Olson served as the organization’s full-time executive director from 2001 to 2003. Even after her departure, she remained involved with the Rainbow House as a volunteer, board member and grant advisor.

She will work half-time from her home in Milwaukee.

“Already having experience with the staff, board, and organization, I've been able to effectively manage the administrative functions in coordination with Jessica,” Olson said in an e-mail. “I’m only a phone call or e-mail away around the clock, and I come up as needed. It's a two hour drive. Having a director in one location and employees at a different facility is not an uncommon business practice. Many shelters have outreach offices in other communities.”

Honish, who has been with the agency for 14 years, will manage the daily operations of the shelter.

Olson hired Waschbisch as an adult legal advocate for Rainbow House in December 2001. She served in that capacity until April 27, 2013 when she was stabbed to death by Brent Kaempf, 49, in the Peshtigo home they shared. He was sentenced in January to life in prison without chance of parole.

After Olson departed as director, Rainbow House had a succession of directors until Waschbisch took over in June 2011.

“Patricia's first love was working directly with domestic abuse survivors, and she filled in as Interim Director to help achieve the agency's mission,” Olson said.

On July 30, the Rainbow House shelter in Marinette will be dedicated as the Patricia Waschbisch Center Against Domestic Violence. A ceremony is set for 4 to 5 p.m. at the center, 1530 Main St.

“She lived and breathed that shelter, and anyone that knew her knew that,” said board president Francine Kitkowski. “

I felt she deserved it and I wanted her to be remembered forever, and when anyone who knew here is gone, anyone can go and look at the sign and ask questions and remember her.”

Rainbow House by the numbers

Statistics for the period of January-March 2014

Total shelter clients: 21 (11 adults, 10 children)

Shelter nights: 244 (total nights of each adult and child housed.)

Outreach clients served: 13 children up to age 17; 28 women ages 18-24; 96 women and five men ages 25-49; 11 women and one man ages 50-59; and five women over 60.

Jessica Honish, lead advocate at Rainbow House, has been accepted into the WE LEAD Leadership Academy.

The year-long program focuses on building new voices of leadership within the movement to end domestic and sexual violence by providing hands-on leadership development opportunities for survivors of violence and/or people from Wisconsin’s underserved or underrepresented communities.

The academy is a program of End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin, formerly known as The Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, based in Madison.